River Song
Origin Melody Pond was conceived on the TARDIS, in flight through the Time Vortex, sometime soon after her parents wedding. Her mother Amy had been kidnapped sometime shortly after her conception and replaced with a Flesh avatar. Almost the entirety of Amelia's pregnancy was spent plugged into the neural relay that controlled this Flesh. She awoke, only when the Doctor broke the connection to the Flesh, as she went into labour. Amy gave birth to Melody on Demons Run, an asteroid which was being used as a military base by the religious order known as The Silence, led by Madame Kovarian. On this base was an amalgamation of different sects, from Anglican Marines to Headless Monks. Melody was stolen from her parents as a newborn, to be raised by Kovarian and The Silence, with a single purpose. Kill The Doctor. Having been conceived on the TARDIS mid flight, Melody seemed to have picked up some Time Lord DNA. She exhibited Time Lord characteristics, such as having two hearts. This was discovered during tests performed on her in the month following her birth. Soon after she was whisked away, herself to be replaced by a Flesh avatar. Madame Kovarian in fact took great pleasure in informing The Doctor via video link as she fled Demons Run with the real Melody, saying "Oh Doctor. Fooling you once was a joy… but fooling you twice, the same way? It's a privilege!" As she broke off the video link, she also broke the connection between Melody and her Flesh avatar, causing the avatar to liquefy in the arms of Melody's poor mother Amy. Kovarian and The Silence fled to Earth in the 20th century, to raise Melody in an environment appropriate for her. Melody was trained and conditioned from a very early age, to become the perfect assassin, specifically tailored to kill The Doctor. In fact, her first words (unlike most babies, whose first words are mama or dada) were "Kill Doctor." which must have made Madame Kovarian ever so proud. Before she could walk she knew how to use a throwing star at ten paces and when she DID learn to walk, her first steps were towards a box of grenades. For her third birthday, this bespoke psychopath was gifted her very own pair of nunchucks. Sufficed to say it wasn't a great childhood by any stretch of anyone's imagination. Melody, when not being honed into the perfect killing machine, was isolated in the "Nightmare Room" on Demons Run. It seemed like a sweet nursery or playroom… until you looked past the teddy bears and clockwork toys to see the force field on the door. On occasion, Madame Kovarian would tell Melody bedtime stories, but often and for her own enjoyment it seemed, she gave Melody nightmares… only to be the very person who settled Melody back to sleep when she was woken in terror by those very same nightmares. A few years later she was transferred to Greystark Hall in Florida, 1969. Under heavy security, she was forced into an Apollo astronaut suit which had been upgraded with alien tech by The Silence. It was possible for this suit to move entirely on it's own and in fact, the suit placed Melody inside itself both to contain her and to sustain her. It provided her with sustenance and minor healthcare. It was also outfitted with artificial intelligence and above average communications technology, which meant that when Melody got scared it put her in contact with the highest powered individual available… which to Melody at that time, had been president Richard Nixon of the United States of America. The suit could put her in contact with him, no matter where he was, day or night. She called him many times, both to warn him about The Silence and to ask for help when she was afraid, telling him repeatedly that the "space man" was going to "eat" her, although she couldn't tell him what help she needed nor where she was, beyond "Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams." It was these calls that would lead to her meeting The Doctor for the first time. He, Amy, Rory and an older version of herself had been drawn to 1969 and a man named Canton Everett Delaware the Third, to investigate the calls on behalf of the president. During this time, while in the modified space suit, Melody approached The Doctor and Amy for help… but Amy, in fear for The Doctors life, picked up a gun and fired at Melody as she raised the outer visor of the helmet, Amy not realising it was a child inside the suit. The shot, however, missed. It left a bullet hole in the inner visor of the helmet, but luckily Melody was left unhurt, though a little shaken. Upon returning to Greystark Hall three months later, she discovered her mother in her room. Try as she might, Melody couldn't get past her mother's confusion at finding a photo of herself holding a baby inside the girls room, so she was of no use as Melody begged her for help. When members of the Silence arrived, Melody made her escape, forcing her way out of the suit and making a run for it… but not before she caught sight of the Doctor one more time. Over the next six months or so, Melody travelled the states til she made her way to New York City at the beginning of 1970, developing an illness that would ultimately lead to her death. Before she did die however, her body began the regeneration process, Melody telling a homeless man she had met that she was "dying… but I can fix that. It's really easy… see?" before her body burst with regeneration energy and she transformed into a toddler. Somehow over the next few years (no one knows exactly how, even Melody can't remember, also unable to fully remember her time being trained and conditioned at the hands of certain members of The Silence, who erase themselves from your memory as soon as you're no longer looking at them. Repeated exposure to these abilities, which were used to train Melody using a sort of post-hypnotic suggestion, can cause severe memory problems and in extreme cases can lead to madness. Anyway, I digress...) Melody ended up in 1990s Leadworth, meeting befriending and going to school with her parents. Going by the name Melody, but preferring the abbreviation Mels, she behaved recklessly and often broke the rules and sometimes even the law. She held the record in Leadworth Primary School for confiscated property and would continue her "criminality" well into her teen years and beyond. Even though she obviously didn't know she was Mels' mother (how could she, they seemed to be the same age!) Amy seemed to act like a mother to her anyway, lecturing her after her MANY visits to the Headmasters office at school and into her early adulthood when she began to get into trouble with the police. In primary three, Melody helped her mother deal with a particularly nasty bully who had taken and 'beheaded' her "Raggedy Doctor" doll. Mels wore a mask and dubbed herself "The Sheep of Doom" to scare the girl into returning the doll. The plan worked. Mels was obsessed with Amy's 'Raggedy Doctor' stories, claiming she would one day marry him, while at the same time due to her conditioning blaming him for historical disasters such as the sinking of the Titanic. She claimed they were his fault as he hadn't intervened. Mels once again came to the rescue of her parents when Krampus and his goblins invaded Leadworth. At first she used her augmented strength to fight against them, though they would eventually trap Melody and her parents. When Krampus did indeed capture the three, he had them wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper. It was only when the very bully who had stolen Amy's doll realised that Krampus had been deceiving her, that he was forced back into his own realm, leaving no one but Mels with memories of the incident. Melody mended the doll with tape and gave it back to her mother, agreeing with her grandfather that Amy and Rory made a "lovely couple." When she had reached "adulthood" Melody got a job as a management consultant, but that didn't mean that she had given up her criminal ways. She owned and drove a mini cooper, but that didn't stop her from stealing cars… and buses, one of which she drove through the botanical garden. It was around this time that she helped Amy to realise that Rory was in love with her, Amy having previously believed that Rory was gay, given he had never showed interest in any other girls. Mels however, would choose not to attend their wedding, later claiming "I don't DO weddings.". Some time in the autumn of 2011, Amy and Rory decided to leave a message in a 'crop circle' in a cornfield for The Doctor (he wasn't answering his phone…) and Melody decided to follow them, although in her typical fashion she did so in a stolen sports car. It was in this field that Melody would meet The Doctor again. Having almost run him over with the sports car, she got out and observed him laying on the ground, complaining to Amy in that moment that "You said he was funny. You never said he was hot.". After introducing herself to The Doctor and making it clear she knew all about his exploits with her "best friends" and his "bigger-on-the-inside blue box" she realised that the police were hot on her trail and she needed to get the hell out of Dodge, fast. She held The Doctor at gun point and when he asked her where she wanted to go, she replied "Well, let's see. You have a time machine. I've got a gun. What the hell, let's kill Hitler!" There were only a few small flaws in this plan, of course. Number one among those problems, was that en route to 1930’s Berlin, Melody put a bullet hole in the TARDIS rotor. This caused her to spew poisonous smoke into the console room and crash through the outer wall of Hitlers office and smash into the wall opposite, (admittedly, The Doctor had claimed they were in a state of “temporal grace” which meant the gun wouldn’t and COULDN’T go off… the liar.) The Doctor, Mels, Rory and Amy all came spilling out the doors of the TARDIS into the office. At that moment, Hitler had been having a rather awkward interaction with a shape shifting time travelling robot piloted by miniaturised people… The Teselecta, which at that time was posing as Nazi General Erich Zimmerman. The incoming TARDIS had knocked both Hitler and the Teslecta to the ground and when the Teslecta recovered its footing, Hitler shot at it in fear. Somehow in the middle, Mels took a bullet to the gut. As she lay dying from her mortal wound, she revealed she had always planned to marry The Doctor. This prompted him to promise he would marry her if she survived. It was then that she began to lay the clues down as to who she was, first saying that he’d need her parent’s permission and then pointing out that he could ask them then and there as they were in the room. “Penny in the air? Penny drops.” The Doctor asked about her name. “Mels is short for--” “Melody” She replied “Yeah, I named my daughter after her…” Amy broke in. “You named your daughter after your daughter…” The Doctor marvelled. “It took me years to find you two. I’m so glad I did. And you see? It all worked out in the end, didn’t it? You got to raise me after all.” Mels gasped. “You’re Melody?” Amy questioned. “But if she’s Melody, that means she’s also--” Rory began but found himself cut off. “Shut up Dad! I’m focusing on a dress size.” It’s at this point that her body burst with regeneration energy and she transformed. When her regeneration completed she began to scrutinize her new body. Apparently very pleased with what she saw and felt. Once she was sure, she was quite satisfied with her teeth, hair, her weight, and her bottom, her programming and conditioning began to kick in. At first, she tried to shoot the Doctor with Hitler’s pistol, which was lying on a chair near the fireplace. The gun clicked, but no bullet was shot from the barrel, as the Doctor had emptied the chamber while she was regenerating. Melody then tried to shoot him with the gun she had brought with her. However after the TARDIS incident, the Doctor had placed on Hitler’s desk in a fruit bowl, which he had then spun around while Melody had him pinned up against the same desk. When she wielded the “gun” after pulling it from her waistband behind her back, she discovered she was instead holding a banana. Seemingly frustrated that she wasn’t able to kill him with a gun, she grabbed a letter opener, but the Doctor used the sonic to knock it from her hand. The Doctor pointed out that if she was in a hurry, she could have killed him in the cornfield, to which she replied: “We’d only just met. I’m a psychopath, I’m not rude.” Amy, being her mother, really didn’t want to accept that her only child could be in any way psychopathic. Melody brushed off her mother’s protestations however and pointed out she had been trained and conditioned for one purpose. To kill The Doctor. By this point, she had tried to shoot him a third time with Zimmerman's gun, but The Doctor had taken the clip out, so nothing happened. The Doctor pointed out to Amy that this is what Madam Koverian and The Silence had been planning all the time that they’d been holding Amy and Melody. “Demons’ Run, remember.” The Doctor began. “This is what they were building, my bespoke psychopath,” “I’m all yours, Sweetie” Melody charmed. At the point, she kissed The Doctor softly on the lips. He informed her that River Song was, the only person allowed to call him that. Melody asked who that was and when told it was a friend, she claimed that River Song was a stupid name. She then walked over to the hole in the wall of the building and looked out over Berlin. She warned her parents not to follow her, and when The Doctor asked if there was a warning for him, she made the revelation that she had killed him already, in the only way she knew he wouldn’t be able to plan for. Her lipstick was laced with judas tree poison. She had killed him with a kiss. Then she jumped out of the window. The Doctor sent Amy and Rory after Melody to try and make sure she didn’t cause any great disruption in Berlin. Though met by Nazi soldiers outside of the building, Melody mocked them slightly and for that they tried to shoot her… However, she was within the first 12 hours of her regeneration, meaning her body was still rebuilding and bursting with regeneration energy. She burst out with that energy once more, healing the bullet wounds and knocking all of the soldiers to the ground. She stole a motorbike and fled. She decided that she was going to rob a hall full of Nazi fund raisers in order to get a new look for her new body. Unbeknownst to her, both her parents and the Teselecta had followed her. The Teslecta stormed into the hall having taken the shape of Amy having transported Amy and Rory inside, they then confronted Melody for the crime of killing The Doctor. When they were quite content that they had who they were looking for, they took hold of Melody using a forcefield beam, which also caused severe agonizing pain. It was soon after that that the Doctor turned up in the TARDIS. He distracted the crew of the Teselecta for long enough to cause a distraction so Amy could make the robotic anti-bodies attack all the occupants of the Teselecta. The crew asked their mothership for an emergency evacuation and were all beamed out, leaving only Amy and Rory inside. The Doctor begged Melody to save Amy and Rory. She used the TARDIS, who in those moments taught Melody everything she needed to know to pilot her and keep her up mechanically, as she flew inside the Teselecta luckily materializing around her parents in the nick of time to stop them from being destroyed by the mechanical anti-bodies. The three returned to The Doctor, just in time for him to ask Melody to pass on a message to River Song, which she said she would. As the Doctor seemed to die, Melody asked her mother who River Song was. Amy used the family privileges she had been granted while onboard the Teslecta, to make the machine change it’s exterior to take on that of River. It was at this moment that she realized that somehow she WAS River Song and between this shell shocking revelation and the effort she had seen The Doctor put into saving her parents, Melody decided to use regeneration energy to bring the Doctor back to life the same way she had killed him. Unfortunately, Melody used all of her remaining regenerations in one go, causing herself to pass out from sheer exhaustion. Melody woke up in a hospital room, with her parents and the Doctor by her side. She didn’t regain consciousness for long however, clearly not fully recovered from saving the Doctor’s life, before she passed out again. The Doctor left a TARDIS blue diary, tied with a red ribbon on the table by her bed. In hopes of meeting with the Doctor again, when Melody was fully recovered, she enrolled herself in an archeology course at Lunar University in 5123, stating she was studying archeology as she was looking for “a good man”. She chose Benny Summerfield as Melody knew that Benny had travelled with The Doctor, and though she rarely attended the lectures, she still managed to graduate top of her class. Melody really only worked for several days to gain her doctorate from Luna University, but she was to find out that while she had hoped she was done with Madame Kovarian and The Silence, she wasn’t. On the day Melody, (or as she had begun to refer to herself, River Song) graduated, she was met in her study by members of the Silence. They captured her, subdued her and forced her into yet another modified space suit and submerged her in Lake Silencio, Utah on the 22nd of April 2011... and waited. Later that day, The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and an older River Song were having a picnic on the shore of the lake. When the time arrived, Melody emerged from the lake to confront The Doctor. He left the group to speak to her alone, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay… But River had other ideas. She had decided she wasn’t going to kill The Doctor, no matter how she was programmed. She drained the suit’s weapon systems, but this caused its own issue as time itself splintered. River had tried to rewrite a fixed point in time, only to break history as an alternate reality was created around The Doctor. But time was dying. All of history was happening at once. Working with Amy and Rory and others who remembered that this wasn’t how reality was supposed to be, she had captured Madame Kovarian and a number of the Silence members who could alter memory, and imprisoned them in the Pyramids. River knew that time was crumbling, but to her it would be nothing in comparison to her knowing she had killed the only man she ever had or ever would truly love. It wasn’t until The Doctor finally convinced River that he had a plan, as he married her to get close enough to whisper it to her, that she finally gave in. She could see he and the TARDIS were safe inside the Teselecta. As they sealed their union with a kiss, time began to move once more. The “murder” of the Doctor complete, River strode back into Lake Silencio, her modified suit saving her from the bullets the flew towards her from the barrel of her own very future self’s pistol. For the murder of the Doctor, River was sentenced to twelve thousand consecutive life sentences in the Stormcage Containment Facility in the 52nd century. Though she knows the Doctor isn’t dead, she serves her sentence without question in order to allow people to believe that he is indeed dead. Knowing her days may be cold but her nights will be filled with adventures with her husband, The Doctor. Abilities Extremely keen sense of smell, respiratory bypass system, can sense time shifts, two hearts, enhanced physical strength. Skilled assassin, well versed in temporal theory and advanced sciences, can flawlessly pilot a type 40 TARDIS alone and manage the upkeep on a mechanical level, incredibly intelligent Weaknesses Her love for the Doctor, her love for her parents, often stubborn, a neural block which stops her being able to kill Madame Kovarian no matter how much she might want to. Paraphernelia Vortex manipulator, alpha meson blaster, blow gun, revolver, hallucinogenic lipstick, poisoned lipstick. Category:Proto-Time Lords Category:Canon